Da Curious

it's done. it's over. finito. what has consumed my life the past three months or so but especially during the past week is done. yesterday marked my last day on my sf client. no more public transportation although that will soon change with my move to sf this summer. no more getting spit on by homeless people. no more packing and unpacking each weekend. finally my life can resume some sort of normalcy. actually i can finally get my life back again. maybe some of my spunk will return because apparently it was missing as i was informed by a friend a few weeks earlier.

but this is more than just the end of a job. i leave clients all the time and move on to the next one without a second thought but never in my three and half years here have i devoted more time and energy and become so passionate about work and meeting the deadline. no team has ever met it before. at least not in the past three years anyways. we all became obsessed is the only way i can describe it. obsessed with finishing. obsessed with being the first to meet the deadline. obsessed with relishing in the joy of telling the client to fuck off for being such dicks to us. in my head of course and pardon my language. i am known to swear after normal working hours.

i don't think anyone can really understand except the four of us. my team i'm referring to of course. no matter how much i try to explain it or describe it no one will truly know. even i can't quite wrap my mind around it but this is probably the worst and best experience in my three and half years in the corporate world to date. the best referring to my co-workers. we rocked. never did i think i'd get so close to people i work with but i guess that's what happens when you essentially see them more than anyone else in your life for three months straight. the worst being the client who hated us, the room where everyone got sick, the late hours, the frustration and yet a little part of me is still contemplating recurring next year. yes slap me now please. i probably do need a rude awakening.

my city vacation has not exactly turned out as i had hoped. for the past week or so i've become a working machine. little to no chatting. no phone calls. turned down all lunch requests and happy hours. my life just stopped completely. all i did was work and then work some more. our routine came down to working till 10pm in the room with no air conditioning to where it felt like i was sweating on a hot humid day in taiwan to going back to the hotel room and showering only to meet up again in my co-workers room thirty minutes later to work some more till 3 or 4am when i couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. we pulled in desks and chairs from the other rooms and the place that we've all been calling home for the past couple of months became a makeshift office. even i wasn't quite sure how i did it. working till midnight for an entire month? who knew i had it in me.

but we did it. the deadline was met yesterday night around 9pm. it was quite an emotional day evidenced by the fact that when the IT guys sent us flowers with a card saying "you'll be missed" myself along with another co-worker both got a little teary eyed. don't ask why. throughout the day everyone kept asking how many issued? how many more to go? but when the last email was sent and the entire team including the partner and manager went out for a celebration dinner i hadn't felt that proud of myself or my team in quite a while. this is easily the best team i've ever worked with. like one of them said, if i was on the job with anyone else i probably would of quit by now. it's hard to describe but as we were all pulling our luggage and carrying our roses to the bart station to go our separate ways a wave of sadness washed over me. cheesy yes i know.

it was all worth it though. having the partner treat us to a nice expensive dinner to having the manager check in for the night at the same hotel and hitting up the bars at north beach where we all drank and danced the night away. stopping off at seven eleven to look for more alcohol only to find none and then passing out in my hotel room only to wake up this morning and realize that hey i don't need to go to work. we've got the day off and you know the manager loves the team when she too comes shopping with us in the city. it was easily one of the best days i've had this month. no stress. no work hanging over my head. just overall elation as the day we've all been looking forward to has finally arrived. there's even talk of a vegas trip. vegas with co-workers? i haven't even gone to vegas with a lot of my other friends.

it's going to be weird working with a new team and being on a new client but after my job in orange county this week i don't intend on flying anywhere for a while. a couple weeks at least anyways. it felt good tonight to come home and open up the mail and get my life in semi order. paid the mortgage. paid the homeowner fees. paid my cell phone bill. and i'm even looking forward to coming back and cleaning up my room once and for all. finally i can put my luggage away and organize my life and if i'm real good i'll even try to make it to a couple of kickboxing classes here and there.